Ossos

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Film Info

The first film in Pedro Costa’s transformative trilogy about Fontainhas, an impoverished quarter of Lisbon, Ossos is a tale of young lives torn apart by desperation. After a suicidal teenage girl gives birth, she misguidedly entrusts her baby’s safety to the troubled, deadbeat father, whose violent actions take the viewer on a tour of the foreboding, crumbling shantytown in which they live. With its reserved, shadowy cinematography by Emmanuel Machuel (who collaborated with Bresson on L’argent), Ossos is a haunting look at a devastated community.

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Film Essays

The work of Pedro Costa has progressed in slow, measured steps, but each step has been a giant leap. His slowness is both the condition and the consequence of ethical standards he shares with . . .
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Film Essays

The work of Pedro Costa has progressed in slow, measured steps, but each step has been a giant leap. His slowness is both the condition and the consequence of ethical standards he shares with . . .
Read more »

Press Notes

Before we put 2010 to bed, we thought we’d catch up with all the year-end lists that have sprung up over the past week or so. A good place to start is DVD Beaver’s annual poll, which ranks the . . .
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Press Notes

Criterion’s release last week of the four-DVD box set Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa—featuring Ossos, In Vanda’s Room, and Colossal Youth, acclaimed Portuguese dramas about . . .
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Clippings

Criterion’s release in a DVD box set of the trilogy Letters from Fontainhas is making director Pedro Costa’s name familiar to a wider audience than ever before. These days, you can learn a lot . . .
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Video

Film Essays

The work of Pedro Costa has progressed in slow, measured steps, but each step has been a giant leap. His slowness is both the condition and the consequence of ethical standards he shares with . . .
Read more »